Look at the Flowers

“Look at the beautiful flowers, Mommy.”

As we walked along to the park yesterday, my son’s voice halted the cacophony in my head temporarily, and I stopped to look at his beautiful flowers. They were, to my eye, neither beautiful nor necessarily flowers – just stems with some wilting former flowers. But these observations perfectly reflected us at that moment. My son: hopeful, seeing wonderment and interest in absolutely everything. Me: feeling overwhelmed, irrelevant and introspective – not seeing the present moment nor the hope right in front of me.

Many years ago, I wrote a piece based around the reflection of Cardinal Avery Dulles to “look at the flowers in the field” when trying to work through my own struggles with faith. The point in that piece was about the remarkable creation inherent in the simplest of things and God’s care for the smallest of things (and hence care for us), but also reminded me poignantly today with my son’s observation about living in the moment and the often–quoted reminder from Matthew 6:34, “Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.” At the moment, I waste so much time worrying about what will happen tomorrow in so many aspects of my life, and how to get there, that I find it hard to notice the beauty and peace of right now. Sometimes that beauty, and definitely peace, only last a few minutes – chasing after a very active toddler while trying to set up a home after an international move and figuring out what to do with my life workwise is a stressful stew. But the moments of peace today that I want to hold onto and reflect on are important and can get me through the harder ones. Today I’m thankful for a small boy who tells me I am beautiful, when I least feel like it; for a husband trying to help me even though he is running on empty himself; for my son hugging me in bed after a sleepless night for both of us and bouncing with energy to greet the day; and for a helpful sitter giving me the time I need to breathe and re-energize, so I can bring the best of myself to all three of us.

As I try to remind myself today and every day to shut out the noise and be present in the moment, I ask God’s help with the refrain from today’s Psalm (Ps 85:2-4, 5-6, 7-8) “Lord, show us your mercy and love.”